April 5, 1999

On Equality Picture the ideal world: no one discriminating against each other out of differences due to race, religion, or sexual preference. This has become a battle cry of many people. Stop being ignorant and accept that we are different and ergo, we will all get along. Too bad this is the stupidest concept ever thought of and by no means will it work!

The solution is not that simple. How can merely accepting differences change things? Realizing and accepting differences does not make them disappear. Nor does it make them not matter.

This is where a lot of people like to stop in this conversation. Most believe that the idea of equality means that we adjust our mindsets so that the differences don't matter. A classic example is women's suffrage. Most believe that the arguments for giving women the vote were that women were the same as men. This is the same idea as that a woman can do the work as a man that was uttered in the 1960's. Actually, the argument for women's suffrage was that women would vote differently than men. Their nuturing instincts would complement the aggressive nature of men, improving the quality of the election. The emphasis was on difference, not some idealized equality.

I hope that it's obvious that the means to ending bigotry and racism and whatever other forms of oppression you care to think of is not throwing aways our differences, but embracing them in such a way that they don't cause strife among us.

However, don't believe that this will all come instantaneously with a twist of thought. Can you really believe that one day you drop all preconceptions, all judgements, all definitions you use to determine your likes and dislikes on people? We naturally make opinions and judgements on everyone, be it based on skin color, creed, height, weight, or body odor. It will take generations of social reforms to remove this from our matrix.

It won't happen in a year, or a decade, or a millenium. It will never happen because it's an ongoing process. Sure, it might look like in recent years that we went from Women's suffrage, to civil rights, to women's lib, and now sexual orientation rights in increasingly faster time, but have all those save women's suffrage been realized? No, we're still working on them. Furthermore, just because we address these inequalities more and more frequently, it doesn't mean we solve them any faster. Instead, the work of one group inspires another to fight for equality. That is why we hear about oppressed groups more and more frequently in this ever increasingly connected world.

So, don't fight for equality. Don't proclaim people are ignorant about differences. Don't tell people to accept them. Tell people to work with differences, to use them to make things better, not the same.